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How Aronian didn’t defeat Alexander Grischuk. Petrosyan’s analysis


Photo: Mediamax

Photo: world chess


In the fifth round of the Candidates Tournament Levon Aronian, who played the white, had advantage over Alexander Grischuk (Russia), but failed to build on it and didn’t win.

Two-time World Olympiad winner, grandmaster Tigran Petrosyan has analyzed the game for Mediamax Sport readers.

Photo: world chess


On the one hand, a draw is a normal result, but on the other hand, failing to use the opportunities which Levon had during the whole game in such a major tournament is unacceptable. 

It was clear from the beginning of the game that Levon prepared better, which impressed Grischuk, who is famous in chess elite as a deep thinker who often appears in tense situations. This time he proved his title again. He spent all his time on the first part of the game, which negatively influenced his position and time, which Levon should have used.

Grischuk started making mistakes from the 16th move, when he took gh4 pawn. He was supposed to play g4 with some tough continuations.

Levon’s 18. f4 19.e5 20.d6 moves were typical for similar situations and provided him with the advantage. Nonetheless, he made a mistake at the 24th move, playing Rd1, while he should have done 0-0-0, which would have most probably been followed by fe 25.Ne3 Bh6 and then an immediate victory with Bb5 beautiful move.

With this mistake Aronian gave the competitor a perfect opportunity to play Qe7 and Bc4 at the 27th move. Check would have been followed by Kf6, and the blacks would have been able to defend. Nevertheless, as I have already remarked, Grischuk had lack of time, so he wasn’t able to find the best solution and made a mistake himself, playing 27... Kg8.
 
Levon had quite a lot of time. I think that he should have definitely found this solution with the white pieces taking Qc8 Kh7 30 Qc5 Ne4 31. Levon didn’t notice the beautiful sacrifice: Rg4!!! Nc5 32. Rh4 Kg8 33. Rd8 Bf8 34. Rh8 Kh8 35. Bc5 with an absolutely winning position.

Playing Qd8 at the 29th move he finally lost all the opportunities to win. The competitors exchanged a number of pieces and reached the logical draw. 

Today Levon Aronian will play against Wesley So (U.S.).

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